Distributing a js_of_ocaml app

Learning
1

Is there a lightweight alternative to electron for distributing an app that relies mostly on the web browser APIs ?

2

I’m not aware of one, and I looked around for one pretty carefully for a few days in the spring. If there is a decent alternative, it isn’t well advertised or has shown up in recent months. If you find one, please post about it.

1 Like
3

I haven’t personally used it so can’t comment on it being light weight, but i’ve heard good things about https://github.com/zserge/webview

2 Likes
4

Thanks ! Interesting proposal I may investigate. However I mainly need to deploy to windows and I’m a little bit unsure about my usage of webapis and IE, I would have been more confident with an edge based solution.

1 Like
5

If it is mostly windows (I’m assuming windows 10 since you mention edge) maybe a progressive web app might suffice? They have their limitations but from what I know windows 10 now supports it. Chrome also added support for it with version 70 (https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/desktop).

The first installation will be a little unique for people not used to it, but after that it should behave like a regular app by being in start menus etc.

1 Like
6

Do you know if these progressive web apps support access to the file system ? The reason I’m actually looking to go towards an app is that I’m hitting persistent storage limitations in the browser.

7

Hmm I haven’t used anything apart from IndexedDb for storage. Looking at their platform page. I don’t know if its possible to have file system access. I’d assume you would end up with similar limitations as a regular web app running in the browser.

I wish there was more competition for electron. I suppose one could try and write QML can call out to javascript [http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtqml-javascript-topic.html]

8

That I need to look into aswell do you have any experience about what kind of limitations you get, how they are handled and the kind of expunge guarantee ? Information about this is quite scattered on the web.

9

I’m afraid my knowledge about it is limited to the MDN docs and Google’s progressive web app resources. It’s something that even I want to learn more about as I start to do more with ocaml on the browser.

1 Like
10

There are Danny Willems’s Cordova bindings (which use gen_js_api) in opam.

2 Likes